In this file photo, a black bear takes a drink from a plastic soda bottle after trash was left out for pick-up near South Lake Tahoe.

Photo: Chad Lundquist

In this file photo, a black bear takes a drink from a plastic soda...

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Black bear in the late summer grass at Sequoia National Park.

Photo: Sequoia National Park

Black bear in the late summer grass at Sequoia National Park.

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In this file photo, a bear cub watches the California Fish and Game as they transport him from the Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care Center to the Lassen National Forest to be released Feb. 10, 30 miles east of Chico, Calif. He was thought to be orphaned by his mother and was starving when picked and rehabilitated at the Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care Center.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

In this file photo, a bear cub watches the California Fish and Game...

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In this file photo, a bear cub watches the California Fish and Game as they transport him from the Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care Center to the Lassen National Forest to be released, 30 miles east of Chico, Calif. He was thought to be orphaned by his mother and was starving when picked and rehabilitated at the Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care Center.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

In this file photo, a bear cub watches the California Fish and Game...

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In this file photo, Marc Kenyon, associate Wildlife Biologist with the California Fish and Game, injects the 90 pound bear cub with 250 mm of the sedative Telezal, in order to release him a few mile from where he was rescued in last August, in the Lassen National Forest 30 mile east of Chico, Calif. He was thought to be orphaned by his mother and was starving when picked and rehabilitated at the Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care Center.

A black bear sow attempts to open a Pacific Waste garbage container in the Bonnie Brae subdivision in Juneau, Alaska, on Monday, July 22, 2013. A neighborhood dog chased the bear off before she could open it. The bear was spotted a few minutes later after opening another container with her cub.

Photo: Michael Penn, Associated Press

A black bear sow attempts to open a Pacific Waste garbage container...

The bear stories that have emerged from Tahoe since the fall have defied logic.

Until last week, that is.

At Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, some students unaccustomed to bears have made it a game on campus to "spank" the animals with a pat on the butt, another game to "pet" one. One student resorted to feeding a bear an apple after deciding it was a bad idea to spank him, according to a November report in the student newspaper.

In one case, a bear social- ized to humans opened the window of a dorm room, climbed in and rummaged through the student's mini-fridge.

Another student, a sophomore who lives in a house near the campus, said a bear broke into her home four times, ate everything and trashed the sofa.

In October alone near Incline, Nevada wildlife officials caught 14 bears, transported them into national forest lands and released them. Other bears branded as dangerous have been shot and killed.

In response, some Tahoe residents on both sides of the state line have damaged traps, harassed game wardens and staked out the traps to keep the bears out of them.

Last week, Ron Stiller, an Incline resident, said he would start a new crusade called Bear Smart Tahoe.

The citizen group probably would go door-to-door to make sure that garbage, dog food, birdseed and other attractions are not left outside. That's something nobody is doing.

The group plans to emphasize minimizing contact to keep bears wild, not socialized.

In several high Sierra wilderness areas, backpackers are required to use bear-proof food canisters. It largely stopped food-raiding by bears at wilderness campsites.

In many areas around Tahoe, the bears work daily routes from home to home until they find something. The hope is to break that chain.

The bears have no fear of people. Game wardens thus have two choices: to trap the bears and move them, or shoot and kill them. That leaves it up to the public to do the Bear Smart Tahoe thing.